Subconscious

You walk into a sandwich shop (let's say Subway) and ask for a sandwich. It's made in front of you. You have full control on the ingredients you want like the kind of bread, veggies and meat, the amount of salt and pepper and the mix of sauces. Let's assume you're a regular visitor. You ask for the same kind of sandwich everyday with minor changes here and there. You've been to the shop so many times that the person who makes the sandwich knows exactly what you want. They ask you if you want your 'regular' and you say 'yes'. After a few days, they stop asking and give you your 'regular' and you gladly take it. Now, if on one spectacular day, you end up not liking the sandwich, you wouldn't go complain to the person in the shop. You would rather change your 'regular' into something else, right?

Welcome to the grand sandwich shop of life where you can experience any kind of sandwich (your emotional state) with any kind of ingredients you want (your preferences i.e., your memories). The only catch is that the sandwich maker is invisible, you don't know if that maker exists or not, and you have no control whatsoever on the ingredients used to produce the sandwich! You can only taste it, like it or dislike it, and endlessly wonder how to change it!

Have you ever wondered, ‘Hang on. Why did I react this way in a given situation? Whatever it was, you just don’t know how it happened. Your reaction was rather quick, right? Like anger, fear, anxiety, procrastination and even a positive emotion like happiness or mere attraction to something. ?

What happens behind the scenes in producing such states of mind? It is the work of your subconscious mind? What is this subconscious mind?

Here are some widely accepted definitions:

Pierre Janet states that, ‘underneath the layers of critical thought functions of the conscious mind lay a powerful awareness called the subconscious mind’.

Sigmund Freud says, ‘If someone talks of subconsciousness, I cannot tell whether he means the term topographically – to indicate something lying in the mind beneath consciousness – or qualitatively – to indicate another consciousness, a subterranean one, as it were. He is probably not clear about any of it.’

From these definitions, the subconscious mind is something that is working in us in the background, and we are usually unaware or not conscious of it. Hence, we call it subconscious.

The subconscious mind is extremely rapid. It’s supersonic. We usually cannot catch up with it. But if we observe slowly, we can try and peek into it. So, let’s do that here.

The conscious mind is logical. When you are conscious, you think logically. You are a living proof of it. Well, you may argue it is not so sometimes, but largely you are logical.

But is the subconscious mind logical? At first glance it doesn’t seem so.

You shouldn’t have been angry for that little thing that went wrong. But you busted out in anger. Moments later, you may consciously lament that you shouldn’t have been so angry. But why did you subconsciously exhibit anger in the first place??

Anger implies a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. You get annoyed when things don’t go as per your wish.

So, when you encountered something that was not as per your wish, your brain simply scanned the situation, decided that it is not as per your wish, thought hell has broken loose and prepared you for conflict by secreting the necessary chemicals. The result is anger.

You may ask, ‘What nonsense? Why did the brain make me angry at a given situation?’ The brain’s response would be, ‘I thought you like to be angry in those given situations!’

Here, what is to note is that your wish conflicted with reality. In what form does your wish reside in you? If you observe closely, your wish is also a piece of memory.

So, the brain rightfully uses that memory to make you angry in case your wish conflicts with reality. Is the brain doing the wrong thing? I’m asking again. Is your brain doing something wrong? Isn’t it doing its job in a logical manner?

Let’s take another example. We all are guilty of procrastinating at some point in our lives. Let’s specifically talk about exercising. There is a tendency in most of us to procrastinate when it comes to exercising, isn’t it?

When you think of exercising, your brain does something very simple:

1. It receives the instruction that you wish to exercise
2. It scans it with existing memories related to exercising
3. The memory that you do not wish to exercise is the most pertinent of all
4. It uses that memory to advise you that you do not wish to exercise
5. You accept the thought and continue to not exercise. The result – you procrastinate

Why is the brain doing this? For a moment, if you were to detach your brain and ask it, ‘Why are you making me procrastinate?’, it’s answer would be, ‘I think you like to procrastinate when it comes to exercising, so I just advised you to do so’. The brain has simply decided that procrastination is what you like. Nothing wrong with the brain!

The brain does not distinguish between good and bad or pleasant and ugly and so on. For the brain, the opposites are, strangely enough, equal.

Saying I like something is equivalent to saying I like something not. Saying I like to eat an apple is equivalent to saying I like to not eat an orange.

Whatever you like or like not are logically indexed to the core memory of you. Just because you don’t enjoy somethings, the brain is not going to disregard them. It will store those memories as you liking to not enjoy those things and those memories are tightly guarded and held in the working memory area along with your likes and desires.

If you encounter things that you like, the brain helps you get attracted to those things. On the contrary, if you encounter things that you don’t like, the brain helps you to move away from those things.

As these thoughts arise rapidly after a logical scan of imprints in working memory, we are usually unaware of how these thoughts arise. Hence, we call it subconscious. But, if we are aware of how these thoughts arise, we are conscious of our thoughts and there is nothing called subconscious in that state.

In a nutshell, the subconscious mind works very fast that we are unable to catch up with it. And its outputs are meant to help you.

The brain is a marvellous organ and is doing its job impeccably well. If you were to analyse using the input process output framework, faulty outputs are a result of faulty inputs. If the input is correct, the output will be correct. So, if anger or procrastination is not what you desire, it is likely that the input is flawed, not the process.

Take the time out to observe your subconscious. At first, it may seem impossible to observe. But push yourself harder. Pause, reflect. The more you observe, you will only be conscious of it, and this will ensure that the input is under your control to produce the output you desire.

There's no escaping this truth: The sandwich you are now eating is your own making. The maker is the one eating. So, if you don't like it's taste, change the ingredients!

Next article on the burning topic of stress and burnout.

Sources:

• Extracts from the book, 'Beneath the walnut and its almond chamber '
• TrimEgo podcast on the Subconscious (Listen on Spotify , Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music and more )